It’s true that, as you say, not everyone will always be satisfied in every situation with what they can get “for free” that is being paid for by someone else.

But nevertheless, what they can get “for free” is increasing in variety and quality all the time. So the number of people who have to pay before they’re satisfied is decreasing, and I think it will continue to decrease for the foreseeable future.

But not everyone will always be satisfied in every situation with what they can get “for free” that is being paid for by someone else.

Some users will be willing to pay for what they value very highly — high quality performances as opposed to amateur, expert medical opinion instead of non-name first year residents, novels by best selling writers as opposed to fanfiction. Willingness to pay will be dependent on circumstances and need.

I work with a lot of online media properties that are fully supported by advertising. The people creating the content are indeed getting paid to do it, but the payments are coming mainly from large corporations. The people consuming the content are paying nothing (unless you count their time, attention, and willingness to look at ads as payment).

Then there are situations like Metafilter, where advertising revenue is constantly coming in, but the creators of the content are also its consumers, and they’re all doing it for free. In fact, many of them have paid for the privilege of being able to do it. The money is going to the guy who created the platform, and the people he pays to maintain it.

In my work in social media, I see many such examples. I’m not saying that this model should be codified into law, only that this is organically where we’re headed, more and more. And I think it will eventually inform consumers’ expectations enough that they won’t feel it makes sense to pay for any media.

Are you arguing for treating information as a type of public property whose creation and distribution should be subsidized (via taxes?) as a public good?